Where is everybody? (Fermi paradox)

[SkidAce]

That's the thing: We have a start, but, is it good enough for a colony? Probably not. Can we improve it enough? Don't know. The ISS doesn't make it's own food, or spare parts. I'm thinking that water is recycled, but solid waste is not. A 3D printer, as described upthread, sounds very useful -- until the printer breaks down and needs a part itself.

To me, that makes putting people into space (or on the moon, or mars), maybe feasible, but not definitely. I think we have a long way to go until we make the technology work well enough for a mostly self sustaining colony.

Thx!

TomB

On a "micro" scale, a lot of our cities and towns are not self sustaining any more.

So a space colony wouldn't have to be any more self sustaining than the transportation requirements to bring stuff (huge at the moment).

 

[Umbran]

In case a space society operates and thinks simliar to the human ones: return of investment. Even if you can travel interstellar distances, why would you do so? Once for curiosity's sake, for sure, but repeated attempts?

We so often miss this fact - your RoI doesn't have to come directly from the action you're attempting. The act of making an attempt tends to spin off lots of economic benefits.

Many people hate to admit it, but NASA has a pretty solid record of effectively paying for itself. Even if we cut out commercial launches NASA gets paid to do - NASA's attempts to do various and sundry things in space constantly supplies new technologies that can be used on the ground, and those have increased economic growth such that the taxes paid into the system are more than recouped by the economy.

 

[Kramodlog]

On a "micro" scale, a lot of our cities and towns are not self sustaining any more.

So a space colony wouldn't have to be any more self sustaining than the transportation requirements to bring stuff (huge at the moment).

If colonist will die out because Earth doesn't constently resupply them, it doesn't sound like colonization. I think a degree of sustainability is understood when talking about colonization.

 

[Umbran]

If colonist will die out because Earth doesn't constently resupply them, it doesn't sound like colonization. I think a degree of sustainability is understood when talking about colonization.

I think history shows that there's a period of time before a new colony becomes self-sustaining. For a while, European colonists in North America needed resupply of certain items from home that they didn't yet have the infrastructure to produce.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

These are requirements and requisites to devlop something similar to humans/humanity, not a necessary result of evolution.

Nah, I'm pretty sure any creature that does not survive its predators will be unable to create civilization. Unless they're extremely long-lived, and uniformly intellectually capable, communication is key to being able to learn from the experiencs of others without having to repeat those experiences.

So this source tells us that we are not the most probable development of intelligent life?

What do you mean? Even the most vegetarian of the great apes still has the teeth and enzymes to be able to consume and derive nutrition from animal flesh. They may not be true predators now, but go back far enough...

Goals and motivations are next to impossible to extrapolate, IMHO. This starts with other human beings, whom we should be able to comprehend, gets more difficult with, say, animals, and might be impossible with real aliens.

The Fermi paradoxon assumes that we can do, though, which makes it am unfounded theory.

While i agree that we may not b wble to understand alien intellects- beyond the basics of math & science- the Fermi Paradox makes no assumptions of comprehensibility of alien intellects. It's just a question based on the dissonance between predictions of the number of inhabitable planets in the universe and what we have thus far observed.

 

[tomBitonti]

On a "micro" scale, a lot of our cities and towns are not self sustaining any more.

So a space colony wouldn't have to be any more self sustaining than the transportation requirements to bring stuff (huge at the moment).

I'm presuming that if there are colonies -- wherever -- they will eventually form interdependencies. Say, a moon base sending raw materials by linear accellerator to habitats in space, obtaining in return food and parts.

But, unless transport costs are somehow shrunk (say, with a space elevator or tether), exchanges with the Earth would by necessity be limited to very high value / low density goods. Say, exotic pharmaceuticals which can only be made in a micro gravity environment, or exotic materials which could also only be made in a micro gravity environment. That is, a space habitat could only import a very limited quantity of goods from the Earth. We could, of course, continue to pay a huge cost to transport goods from the Earth, but then we haven't reached the goal of sustainability.

Now, if the point is that here on the Earth we aren't exactly operating in a sustainable fashion, my response is that that is a huge problem, which we will either solve (by technology, or by changes in behavior), or will be solved for us (by a collapse of civilization and probably a huge die-off of people).

That is to say, failing to be sustainable here on the Earth isn't an argument that space colonies don't need to be sustainable; it an argument that we are in a huge heap of trouble here on the Earth.

Thx!

TomB

 

[Kramodlog]

I think history shows that there's a period of time before a new colony becomes self-sustaining. For a while, European colonists in North America needed resupply of certain items from home that they didn't yet have the infrastructure to produce.

Yes, that is to be expected. But I think Tom and I are talking long term.

 

[Umbran]

Goals and motivations are next to impossible to extrapolate, IMHO. This starts with other human beings, whom we should be able to comprehend, gets more difficult with, say, animals, and might be impossible with real aliens.

The Fermi paradoxon assumes that we can do, though, which makes it am unfounded theory.

No. The Fermi Paradox relies on some things more basic - because for anything we call "living", certain goals and motivations are pretty predictable.

Living things use resources, and reproduce. A given planet can only support a finite population. The Fermi Paradox relies on the idea that intelligent living things will seek out new resources and places to expand population into.

And that's about it. From there, it is all about the numbers. If intelligent life is common, and if travel is not amazingly difficult to achieve, then being visited becomes nigh inevitable, over the long haul.

 

[tomBitonti]

Yes, that is to be expected. But I think Tom and I are talking long term.

Yeah. Short term, a base or colony will absolutely need support from the Earth. And could be supported for some time as a strict dependent of supplies from Earth.

The question is, can a base or colony ever remove that dependence. Turned around, will a base or colony (or group of bases and colonies) ever be self sufficient? Or rather, able to survive with only the resources available in space.

There is a lot out there: The moon, asteroids, comets, sunlight, micro-gravity; raw materials and energy seem to be available in abundance. But, there is also a lot of huge challenges: Radiation; micro-gravity; vacuum; vast distances; gravity wells.

My argument is mostly simply a conservative / hedging one: Until we try pretty hard to build bases and habitats, we really can't say that these will ever be sustainable. That's coming from a background in software, where there are often very optimistic outlooks, which turn out to be quite naive. Also, that is considering that (arguably) we can't even achieve sustainability here on the Earth. Maybe, we don't really try here on the Earth because we haven't yet been forced. On the other hand, maybe, a lot of selection must be done before behaviors are narrowed to sustainable ones; or, our current civilization model just isn't sustainable. Then, if we aren't close to sustainability here on the Earth, we seem to be rather far from achieving it in space.

Thx!

TomB

 

[Nellisir]

I read somewhere last year that it is probable that whatever intelligent life may be out there has probably evolved from a predatory species. The reason? The process of hunting for prey, it was asserted, requires more intelligence than grazing.

That's a binary choice, but there are others. I think intelligent life is more likely in something that both preys and is preyed upon. The more specialized the diet, the more specialized and hardwired the instincts. The smartest birds aren't eagles or hawks, they're ravens and crows. Octopi are predators, but they're also prey. Ditto chimpanzees. I'm not sure about dolphins, but I suspect they experience occasional predation from sharks and killer whales.